Punch Clock

I don’t think I’ve ever been particularly religious. Blame my mother or my grandmother I suppose… I never did like doing what I was told, unless it was what I already wanted to do. But despite a youth misspent in the grips of one church and Sunday school or another, I proudly managed to remember very little from that book. Though this one little thing just stuck with me pretty well.

There’s a time for everything under the sun.

That bit resonated.

It stuck in my craw, sleeping under my skin like a horrible little mite just burrowed in. It echoed when I worked and when I played till I decided that work should be play and it made that stick. And now that was the story of how my time was being spent in the back of a dark non-descript lorry while half asleep, with half a dozen tough looking bastards all sitting around inside with me.

“ETA’s another five minutes.” Someone upfront spoke into the lorry’s PDA system, causing everyone except for me to perk up and start murmuring, getting stunguns and other little nicknacks ready as they tried their best to prepare themselves for what was about to go down.

Me? I was still catching up on my beauty sleep, I’d been 20 minutes off schedule last night. Ten minutes already caught up thanks to my planned buffer and check-in time, and while it wasn’t exactly a good look to be sleeping on the job I figured I’d put in enough hours with this particular nutbar not to have him down grade my professionalism on YELP to catch some zzz during the transportation phase of the plan. I figured I was ready enough for action once we got where ever it was we were going. I didn’t know the particulars of the where afterall, none of us in here really did. We were just extra muscle for the real show.

Such was the life of a henchwench.

“She just gonna keep sleeping over there?” One of the less bright one’s asked. Sounded like some heavy Spanish in his accent. I ignored him, leaving my feet up in that nice comfortable position I’d found.

Three more minutes. I was counting off every second instinctively... could hardly help it really.

“She could be ten minutes late getting out of this van and still get no flack from the boss.” Another near him replied with a half amused snort. “You’re new huh?”

The slight stretch of quiet after that spoke volumes.

“… ok fine. But I just don’t want to lose my bonus cause someone was slacking off. The boss said it was all being timed.” The Spanish guy sounded extra nervous, clearly worried about actually getting his due.

“Don’t sweat it. If there’s anyone who’ll mess up the timings... it won’t be her. Or don’t you actually recognize who it is?” Your defender laughed, a tone of merriment in his voice as he did.

“It was dark when everyone got in.” The man complained, as one of the others snickered. “It’s still dark now. I can barely see past my fingers in here.”

“Yeah. That’s mandatory so the truck doesn’t get stopped cause someone saw a random light peeking out.” Another guy chimed in, smugly reminding the Spanish dude of the reason why. You doubted the man needed such a reminder, but it added to the social heat being laid on for being the newbie.

“I fucking know that…” The Spanish guy grumbled. “Just cause I don’t know who this bitch is doesn’t mean I don’t know the job.”

“God, you’re such a fucking noob. This is pretty much as easy as a job like this gets.” The first guy who’d answered Mr Español replied. “Get in, stand around looking menacing with our halfassed weapons, maybe lift something heavy, then get our asses back out to get paid. Get paid twice if the boss is in a particularly good mood about our securing the objective. And if we’re lucky we won’t even see a single cape on the scene while the boss gets a good record of himself chewing the scenery.”

The Spanish guy grunted, only for one other guy to chime in. “And stop worrying so much newbie, if we get particularly Unlucky, well, that gal over there catching up on her nighty nights, well… she’s our plan B. That there is Punch Clock, so I’m not that surprised you haven’t heard of her... girl hardly ever gets any night-news time or local noise. If you serve any time in the local cape scene, then you get to know who she is.”

Damned right I was. B as in highly unlikely to have to do any actual work. Nothing quite like getting to punch the clock on a workday without work.

“And besides, so long as we put up a reasonable fight for the boss’ cameras we’ll get a proper bonus out of it either way. Even if we land any jailtime we’re only accessories to Alter crimes, most we can get a few months and a slap on the wrist if nobody dies. See, simple newbie” The guy explaining continued, clearly smugly rubbing his knowledge in the new guys face. The tone of his voice said it all.

“Yeah fuck, I fucking know all that…” The Spanish guy growled more snappishly, his chain thoroughly yanked.

“Then try not to fuck up out there.” I could practically hear the guy grinning.

Asshole.

I couldn’t help but smirk in my own head as I thought the word before reflecting on the amount of time left.

Thirty seconds... fuck it I was going to stretch this as far as I could…

“Alright people… we’re here, start moving the show’s already on the road. We’ve arrived on time and ready to move… go go go!” The PDA called out, prompting the back of the Lorry to suddenly burst open, flooding the entire back with light.

Three... The guys were out, you could hear as the last of their boots hit the metal of the truck.

Two… Ok time to stir... systems online.

One.

“Alright fella, let’s do this. I’m on the Clock!” I couldn’t help but shout as I sprang to my feet, pushing up with metallically clad arms as lips parted from within the dark leaving a Cheshire smile. I slammed my hands together causing a sound not unlike two vehicles colliding, pulling all eyes briefly back to me.

I sprang out of back of the truck still grinning, letting the cold air wash over me.

Right on time.

… I immediately took one look at where we’d ended up and completely regretted most of my recent life choices.



… was it too late to get back into the van?